Bilingual children use whichever linguistic means is available to them to establish themselves as bilingual speakers. If dominance in one language stands in the way of conversing in the other, children compensate by producing accented speech and making sure that they restrict this to home conversations with their parents. This creates a different identity for them from the they convey to their monolingual English friends, whom they address with the local features that they have acquired from the immediate monolingual community. This identity may also be used at home when the bilinguals are challenging their parent and establishing their linguistic credentials.